


Don't have to ask

by InsaneJul



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gen, Immortality, Male-Female Friendship, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-19 08:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9429800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: After their brief conversation on the street, Elmer takes Sylvie up on her offer and meets her in a speakeasy. Can be interpreted as platonic or romantic. Reunion fic!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I...kinda shipped this. Don't ask me to explain myself. I like Elmer for no reason at all, and I really wanted to see them meet up again.

            He sees her again on a Monday night. He hasn’t been in New York for very long, but after seeing plenty of his friends again, he decides it’s time to really talk to Sylvie. After all, she told him where to find her. One would think that singers at bars aren’t in high demand on Monday nights, but it also turns out that people will drink at any time on any day. It only takes three speakeasies before he finds her, at the fourth, far from discouraged.

            Elmer takes a seat farther from the stage, knowing that she’ll find him when she’s ready. Her voice is stronger than he would have expected, the accent almost completely gone. But then, she grew up a bit since he last saw her. He has to expect to be surprised. When she tips her head slightly back to hit a certain note and smiles through the melody, his heart constricts a little in his chest. Of everyone, it appears she has found the most independently happy life. He is proud of her. It’s not like joining a gang or committing treason or following people all over the world to erase their frowns. Nothing is like the pure joy that outlines her figure on center stage.

            After the show, people crowd around her, looking for autographs or a kiss or some flirtatious wink. He came for something else entirely. Sylvie pushes them aside and as they finally filter out she sits down across from him.

            “So, this is what you do now,” he says. It isn’t very original, nor is it pertinent, but how else is the conversation going to begin?

            “Yes,” she doesn’t shy away from eye contact, which is a little unexpected, as well. “What have you been doing?”

            “Oh, whatever I can. I do terrible things to make money and use it to do wonderful things,” he shrugs. “I just want to make people happy, but it turns out we live in a world where you can’t always do the right thing, or you won’t be of much help at all.”

            “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?” there’s an amused twinkle in her eyes that _is_ familiar, but grown-up and new as well, and it’s so far from her girlish sweetness it almost makes him catch his breath.

            “Guess not. That’s my disadvantage here, isn’t it?”

            “It’s comforting. As many bad memories accompany that boat trip, I have missed some of the people I used to know.”

            “I’m glad to hear it! You know, you’re the first one I’ve seen who I haven’t had to ask for a smile?”

            “You asked me on the street, Elmer.” She still can’t say his name entirely properly and it brings back too many good memories.

            “That barely counts! Wasn’t even a real talk. We’re talking now, and you’re smiling without any prompting whatsoever. It’s a good look on you. New, but also the same.”

            “I don’t see a single thing different in your appearance.”

            “Well I should hope not!”

            They both laugh at this, and then he shares with her the events of his visit with Huey. She tells him more about Maiza and the boy that seems to be in the same place that Greto was for him so long ago. Elmer touches her hand when she mentions Greto’s name, since her voice trembles just a little. Sylvie shakes her head and reminds him that Maiza’s friend has shown her to let go of that old love. “Since I left that room, and ran into you on the street, my life is different.”

            “I hope in a good way?”

            “Yes.”

            The two fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Elmer thinks that nothing and everything have changed, somehow. He’s tempted to tell her about—

            “I hope you will come back, sometime.”

            “Come back here, you mean?”

            “I don’t know how long you plan to stay here. I’m sure there are many more people you must bring happiness to—“ she smiles to herself, “—but I don’t want you to go, just yet. I have barely begun to tell you all the things I have wished to share.”

            The smile that breaks across Elmer’s face is unlike any she has ever seen there. “I might hang around here for a while longer, if that’s what you want.”

            “It is.”

            She is still straightforward and calm about every word that comes out of her mouth. He wonders so many things while she holds his gaze: how long she has lived in New York City, where else she has been, how many people she has loved, how many others of their group she has found, how many jobs she has held, how old she was when she drank the elixir, what made her change her mind, how she stayed under the radar all this time, how many times she has truly laughed. He only asks one more before he leaves.

           “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

            Sylvie laughs. “Like it is necessary.”

            “Yeah, but humor me here. Have you?”

            Elmer’s eyes show her that he is uncharacteristically serious. She sighs. “Sometimes I didn’t. But lately, I have been doing much better. I sleep and I eat, I keep a cat because I am sometimes lonely. I keep myself clean and I work every night. I have a roof over my head. On my own, I think I am doing well. I am taking care of myself as much as I can, I believe.”

            “That’s good to hear.”

            “And you?”

            He smiles. “If others aren’t taking care of themselves, how could I think of myself?”

            She might have responded to that, but he stands. She follows, rising to her feet to look upwards into his eyes.

            “I have to go now, but I’ll see you again, Sylvie.”

            “ _Au revoir,_ Elmer,” she says, and watches him go.


End file.
